Currently in today's fast paced society, food is often consumed on the go. Fast food restaurants profit through their ability to create food for the public that is both filling and can be prepared and consumed at an accelerated pace. The majority of such eating establishments offer drive through services where the consumer can order, pay for and then consume their food while never leaving their vehicle. This creates a problem for the consumer by having to both eat and drink while driving. Most fast food meals typically contain a main dish, such as a sandwich, a secondary dish, such as french fries or onion rings, and a beverage. Often, the secondary meal is accompanied with a condiment. The condiments range from ketchup to ranch style dressing and are intended for use with e.g. the fries or onion rings. Consumers are confronted with the problem of organizing their meal in such a way that they can eat and also drive safely, or when consuming the meal standing. As such, the organizational problem of the consumer is increased when the consumer desires to dip e.g. their fries or onion rings into the condiment.
A solution to this problem is to provide a condiment container that has the ability to attach itself to a food or beverage container such as the box of fries or beverage container. Prior art containers have been designed to achieve this solution but their design and functionality do not accomplish a satisfactory result.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,394,297 to Nance describes the idea of attaching a secondary condiment container with a prong to an associated food container such as a french fries box. This design does not solve the problem of allowing the consumer to drive safely while dipping their food in the condiment container. In a vehicle, there are typically storage compartments to place beverages while driving. However, there are no convenient areas to place in a fixed upright position the french fries box. As such, the consumer still does not have the ability to conveniently use the condiment with the meal. U.S. Pat. No. 6,427,864 to Asselin discloses a condiment container that surrounds the drinking straw of the beverage container. While this does allow for the consumer to have the condiment fixed to a container which is situated in a cup holder of the vehicle, such condiment container is not optimal. The container requires that the consumer dip around the straw, thereby having the straw as an obstacle in the dipping process. Further, the surface area is minimal and the amount of condiment which can be successfully used is hindered. Other prior art discloses condiment container attached to food or beverage containers as well. WO 94/13180 discloses a system for attachment of a condiment container, where either the food or beverage container that the condiment container is to be attached to needs to be specially designed, or where the condiment container is only loosely or unsafely attached to the food or beverage container, or where the attached condiment container impedes access to the food or beverage container. WO2004/086919 discloses a system where a condiment container is attached to the drinking straw of a beverage container which provides a loosely or unsafely attached condiment container. The same can be said for the condiment container disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,854,466.
Hence an improved condiment container attachment device would be advantageous, and in particular a more efficient and or reliable condiment container attachment device that may be stably secured to a food or beverage container without impeding the access to the food or beverage container and/or to the condiment container would be advantageous.